In Focus: Blue Chip Real Estate

Q: How has the real estate scenario in UAE changed since last year in terms of customer buying trends?

Rajesh Soni: Last year, we have actually seen the UAE real estate market booming. It was the best performing country in the world. Prices increased between 30% to 50% during last year. We have also seen a steep increase in the number of transactions during last year. Factors which contributed to such an increase were regulations introduced by government, return of confidence among buyers and Dubai winning the 2020 expo bid. During the current year we see prices stabilizing mainly due to Government measures such as doubling transfer fees and introduction of mortgage caps. These measures have helped stabilize real estate market and avoid speculative trade. We are seeing a lot of end users and long term investors in the market rather than speculators/flippers. From here we see robust growth of UAE real estate.

Q: What unique services is your real estate agency offering to customers as compared to your competitors?

Rajesh Soni: We believe that “Customer is king”. That is the reason why we have introduced best practices. As soon as a client gets in touch with us, we allocate the enquiry to a specialized agent and both client and agent are sent an SMS from our CRM with contact details. After 2 days our customer service team calls the client and gets feedback on how the client was treated by our agent. We value our business.

Also we have developed websites for most of the freehold areas where our clients can go and get information about their preferred areas. We have 15 websites designed for different communities to provide maximum one stop information about the communities.

We are open from 8 AM to 8 PM, 6 days a week so clients can reach us at any time convenient to them.

Q: What is the usual response time of your company in answering a customer query?

Rajesh Soni: Maximum of 3 hours

Q: Do you have a separate customer service department that handles web based and telephonic customer queries?

Rajesh Soni: Our front desk has 3 full time staff members to handle both web based and telephonic queries. They are trained well to handle all the queries.

Q: What are some of the most common concerns of customers that you come across when they are looking to rent or buy property?

Rajesh Soni: Some of the common concerns are: Clear title, if we know the owner directly, Government regulations and procedures, transparency in terms of total cost (no hidden cost) and if the property is rented when will it be vacant.

Q: What kind of online customer service and support are you currently providing to your website visitors?

Rajesh Soni: Customers can visit our website and send us an email and we reply immediately to them. We are in the testing phase of developing online-chat system on our website where customers will be able to chat with our customer service to acquire information they need and get answers to their queries. We expect to implement it by the end of August 2014.

Q: What measures does your company take to gather customer feedback?

Rajesh Soni: Every customer is contacted within 2 days to know if he has been taken care of by our agent and on closing of deal our customer service calls clients to get feedback on their experience of dealing with us.

We also have incentives for agents when a customer ranks them highly. This is to encourage them to provide best customer service.

Q: In your opinion how can real estate agencies provide improved customer satisfaction and win the trust and confidence of their clients?

Rajesh Soni: It is very important that we understand the customers requirement. Whether it is a buyer/seller/landlord or tenant, an agent should talk to them and ask relevant questions to understand their requirement and work accordingly. We should be very transparent and explain to them the whole procedure step by step and also inform them about all the charges and total cost.

Q: What steps are being taken by your company to enhance the level of customer service in future?

Rajesh Soni: We regularly train our staff to motivate them on providing high level of customer service, keep ourselves updated with latest developments in terms of government regulations and market trends and know about all the new projects coming up. By doing this we are always working towards enhancing the level of customer service.